What if your past “weaknesses” were the brave survival tools of a heart doing its best to be loved? Your old story does not define who you are today. Healing doesn’t mean erasing the path behind us; it means stepping away from the exhausting need to fix the world, embracing the beautiful freedom of “Let Them,” and walking at the steady, peaceful pace God has set for us.
Welcome to a safe space to protect your peace, find your true voice, and let your faith become your unshakeable anchor.
The Earthly Sanctuaries: Carla Sue and Nancy
Yet, God, in His infinite mercy, did not leave me without a pastoral blueprint of what true love looked like. He gently placed Carla Sue and Nancy into my life. These two special women, my chosen family members, became my earthly sanctuaries. Carla Sue and Nancy were part of my life, and my mother’s life, for over forty years. Together, we shared the full spectrum of the human experience; we laughed together, and we cried together. They truly knew my story, holding it with the utmost tenderness. They knew of my deep love for my parents, as well as the heartbreak of our family’s ending.
Before and after the death of both of my parents, Carla Sue and Nancy were the steady shoulders that God provided for me to lean on. In a world of conditions and expectations, they gifted me the rarest blessing: a safe, quiet space where I was completely free to just be myself.
The departure of each of these beautiful women brought a profound and deeply felt sorrow to my life. Their absences left me missing my safe, comforting anchors. For a season, my emotional world felt tender and uncertain, though they continue to live on in my heart and influence my everyday life. In those quiet moments, when the world outside no longer felt entirely safe, I found myself tempted to retreat behind the old, protective walls I had relied on for so long.
Yet, it is often within these very spaces of difficulty that we are gently guided to find ourselves. Through my own journey in grief work, I came to realize that true healing invites us to softly acknowledge our painful realities, meeting our hurts with a spirit of deep care, patience, and tender self-awareness. I learned that I needed to focus inward first quietly, tending to the needs of my own soul, rather than rushing to soothe the storms of the world around me.
From Victim to Spiritual Creator
Maya Angelou’s timeless words gave me a profound pivot point: “When you know better, you do better.” That single truth gave me the courage to shift my lifelong mission. I officially resigned from the exhausting job of protecting others, and I stepped into the sacred, God-given responsibility of protecting myself. I realized that we all have our own stories, and we get fiercely attached to them. Yet, my rigid attachment to my old story was the very thing that stopped my spiritual growth.
Through the tools of TED*, I did the work to make my life better by changing my narrative. This required taking personal responsibility before God for who I am, what I stand for, and where I am going. By taking responsibility for my own anchor, I was finally able to recognize the hurts of my life as sacred learning experiences that have made me resilient and grateful for finding my true self.
My personal prayer in this transition became a simple, daily surrender:
“Dear God, take me where I need to be, and let me have the wisdom to know when I get there.”
Surprisingly, the more I allowed myself to get in touch with the weight of my real, unedited feelings, the faster my capacity for gratitude grew. God knows every inch of my painful experiences and struggles. In that shared, vulnerable space, I have grown stronger in my faith and infinitely closer to Him. As I intentionally move away from the grip of my hurt, my faith becomes my unshakeable anchor.
Letter to My Younger Self: You’re Off Duty!
I have moved from being silenced by expectations to being a person who defines her own truth. I used to judge my younger self for her choices. I see now she wasn’t being weak; she was using every survival tool she had to keep the world from falling apart. Today, I want her to know I am sorry you had to work so hard to be loved. You are off duty now.
Dear Younger Me,
I am writing to you from the seventy-first year of our life. I see you so clearly now, the tender version of you that spent so many decades carrying the weight of the world, trying so hard to keep everything from falling apart. I want to start with a gentle apology. I am so sorry you had to work so hard just to be loved. I am sorry you didn’t know then what I know now: you were always enough, exactly as you were, without any strings attached.For a long time, I looked back and judged your “people-pleasing” and your “rescuer” tendencies as weaknesses. I was wrong, sweet girl. I see now that those weren’t flaws at all; they were the only survival tools you had in a world that felt conditional. Expecting you to have had the wisdom I hold today is like asking a child to build a sanctuary without a hammer or a blueprint. You weren’t weak; you were an incredibly brave survivor.
I want you to know that you are no longer a character in a story written by others. Because of your resilience, I am now the person who survived, strong enough to finally choose myself. God has blessed us to earn our Doctorate and find our true voice in ministry. While others don’t always understand your path, I want you to know that I do. Every time you had to take a “step back,” it wasn’t a failure; it was simply your heart processing deeper layers of hurt that we weren’t quite ready to face yet.
I am practicing a beautiful new mindset now: “Let Them.” I am letting go of the exhausting need to fix or rescue, and I am letting you be exactly who you had to be so that I could become who I am today. Through grace, I am retraining our mind to understand that those past reactions were simply what we did to survive, never who we are. The heavy weight of old shame is being replaced by a gentle, healthy sadness, and that quiet energy is finally fueling our inner peace.
Thank you for holding everything together with your fragile strength for so long. The storm has passed, and we have found our anchor in God. I am responsible to others, but I am not responsible for them. My only job today is to protect the peace of our present life; their storm is theirs to navigate.
With all my love, my deepest gratitude, and the utmost tenderness,
The Person You Are Becoming
Walking in Value and Hope
Forgiveness of myself and others remains the absolute key to moving forward. The path behind me is still there, completely visible. If I chose to, I could easily walk back into those old, comfortable patterns of sugar-coating, defensiveness, and emotional distance. However, today, I chose not to. Instead, I walk at the steady pace God has set for me—the stride of a woman who finally knows her value, no longer sprinting to rescue a world that isn’t hers to save.
Today, I am deeply humbled to walk with others through their most devastating, shattered moments. I utilize the very framework that saved me, using TED* to inspire people to move from the paralyzing grip of their hurts and boldly recreate their own stories of hope.
Join the Conversation
Thank you for sitting with my heart and my story today. I am opening this safe, quiet space for us to learn, heal, and grow together. If you feel moved to share, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below:
- Is there a part of your past story that you are ready to view with more tenderness and less judgment?
- What would it feel like for you to whisper to your younger self, “You are off duty now”?
- How can you practice the mindset of “Let Them” to protect your peace this week?